Paint it Black
by LordQuidditch
Summary: When Sirius is fighting his cousin, he falls through the Veil. Harry, full of anguish, leaps after him, Remus latching on. Except, the weight of a grown man is often not enough to break the power of grief, and they tumble through the Veil after him, into a world much worse than the one he just left - a world where war is brewing, and the trio must get home, by any means necessary.
1. Paint it Black

**Disclaimer:** Yes, I know these are never read, and actually don't mean a damn thing because if J.K. decided she didn't want any of us writing fanfic, we wouldn't have a leg to stand on. Disclaimers are not law. Then again, might as well cover my ass just in case anyone gets uppity about a lack of one. There will definitely be aspects of stuff taken from other works by published authors and there will be so many that I can't be arsed to put them in the disclaimer by name. So, I DON'T OWN ANYTHING YOU MIGHT RECOGNISE.

 **Summary:** When Sirius is fighting his cousin, he falls through the Veil. Harry, full of anguish, leaps after him, with Remus trying to stop him. Except, the weight of a grown man is often not enough to break the power of grief, and the pair tumble through the Veil after the old mutt, into a world that appears much worse than the one he just left - a world of destruction, a world of fire. A world where they are far from home, and they must find any way to get back, for war is brewing.

 **Author's Notes:**  
 **Quidditch:  
** Well, this really is a turn up for the books. I'd just like to say that I doubted this would ever happen, but now that it has, I'm rather thankful for the fact my Author Name consists of two parts. Put simply, I am the original author of this account, and the only one there was. Please allow me, though, to introduce Lord, my father.

 **Lord:  
** Yep, I'm this brat's dad. Don't expect me to beat around the bush much. I'll be writing some much darker stories than him, so have no doubt about that. And, I guess, welcome.

I will be trying to breathe some life into the old trope of Harry following Sirius through the veil. Yes, I know it's an old one. Yes, I know there are a lot of shit stories written based on that idea. Hopefully, this won't become one of those. Hopefully, you should be in for a bit of badassery from a certain Monsieur Potter and my (possibly) favourite character in terms of what he could have potentially been (DAMN YOU ROWLING!), his lovable rogue of a godfather, Sirius, and the odd bit from a particular werewolf. Oh, and I also thought I'd change from the usual story layout/format. Hope you like it.

Now, as much as I _hate_ trigger warnings, this site seems to have a fascination with them. As such, I might as well honour this backwards tradition and indulge this stupid attempt at political correctness and imposing of safe spaces. This story will be really quite dark in places - violence, definitely. Brutality, most probably. Gore, certainly. Dark themes, undoubtedly. There will no doubt be a lot of stuff in this that a lot of you readers out there won't enjoy or want to read, so consider this a heads up. I like to think most of you will have the common sense to stick to the age-old adage "don't like, don't read". It'll stand you in good stead. However, if you do think that you could possibly partake in my particular brand of dark insanity in the world of Rowling's creation (sort of ... very loosely, really) then step on in - if you're fucked up enough, that is. And with that, your little trigger warning is done.

* * *

 **Paint it Black**

Prologue  
Canis Totus Stercore

 **No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side. Or you don't. -Stephen King**

 **June 18, 1996  
Unknown Time**  
 **The Death Chamber, Department of Mysteries**

Only one pair was still battling, apparently unaware of the new arrival. Harry saw Sirius duck Bellatrix's jet of red light: he was laughing at her.

"Come on, you can do better than that!" he yelled, his voice echoing around the cavernous room.

The second jet of light hit him squarely on the chest.

The laughter had not quite died from his face, but his eyes widened in shock.

Harry released Neville, though he was unaware of doing so. He was jumping down the steps again, pulling out his wand, as Dumbledore, too, turned towards the dais.

It seemed to take Sirius an age to fall: his body curved in a graceful arc as he sank backwards through the ragged veil hanging from the arch.

Harry saw the look of mingled fear and surprise on his godfather's wasted, once-handsome face as he fell through the ancient doorway and disappeared behind the veil, which fluttered for a moment as though in a high wind, then fell back into place.

Harry heard Bellatrix Lestrange's triumphant scream, but knew it meant nothing-Sirius had only just fallen through the archway, he would reappear from the other side any second ...

But Sirius did not reappear.

"SIRIUS!" Harry yelled. "SIRIUS!"

He had reached the floor, his breath coming in searing gasps. Sirius must be just behind the curtain, he, Harry, would pull him back out ...

But as he reached the ground and sprinted towards the dais, Lupin grabbed Harry around the chest, "SIRIUS!"

Lupin lay groaning on the floor, his nose spurting blood, a huge crunch the precursor to it. Dumbledore pulled his wand up in front of him, a spell on his tongue - Harry dove. Remus threw himself at him.

"HARRY! NO!"

Like Sirius, they did not reappear.

Searing light, the whispers of the Veil ... the whispers of the dead.

* * *

Blackness.

That was all there was. All there had been for a while. Just ... blackness. Darker than his jet hair, darker than the midnight sky. True blackness. The blackness of unconsciousness. The blackness, even, of Death. But he was not dead. His eyes flickered, eyelids pulling back and opening.

"Fuck."

He didn't know why the hell he cursed. Reflex, he supposed. He expected light to come flooding in.

There was no light.

There was the glimmer of sight taken from long adjustment to the darkness. Dingy and looming, it shrouded everything. But not light. This was the dull, dirty light of a polluted air, the sun long-abandoning the destruction of the world. And boy, was there destruction. Rubble, grey and shapeless, littered the street. If you could call it a street. Rock lay everywhere, from the no-doubt once pristine houses to the wrecked cars on the road, the thick particles of dust hanging in the breeze, forming a consistency not unlike treacle. Tiny gusts of suffocating wind wafted with them the strong smell of sewage - at least, he assumed it was sewage; it held a sweet, sickly quality to it, but even that was tainted, a rotten stench creeping along in the background, the tang of burnt timber lingering on the nostrils and the tongue. Glowing ashes flickered past his eyes, tiny sparks of life that darted to and fro amongst the devastated walls of man. Scorched stone, molten metal, trickling tar - all were there to be tasted.

Clouds of that bloody dust floated everywhere. It billowed from piles of rocks, it stifled the air, it stilled the weather. Maybe that was why the sky looked so damn grey. So shit. It had that sort of fucked, always shifting darkness to it, one word drifting once again to the forefront of the mind. Grey. Everything was fucking grey. Drab. There was no other word to describe that bloody grey.

The mood was even thicker than the air itself, even darker than the sky it smothered. It hung heavy, weighing down on the already crumbled foundations of a city nearly without colour. Flames danced up and licked at the debris, distorting the nigh flammable ether with a pure, raw heat, blackening the coals of the earth and the man-made bricks and concrete with the soot of the ages, of destiny itself. It was the only light for miles. Occasionally, a fire would emit a lion's roar and engulf its surroundings, or subside and return to the abyss from whence such devilry came. No such thing could be considered right, even for the evil of mankind. Charred bodies added to the smoke, fuelling the fires and burning quicker than any wood. Their stench was enough of a fuel to allow the continuation of Hell's spreading. Tartarus, it seemed, drew ever closer in this place. A dark red, darker than that ever-changing red of blood, stained what little brown earth there was left in this semblance of Hades. The devil's work.

No plants added colour to the desolation. Any that once had existed here were wilted and snapped, their natural green dulled and discarded. Not long ago the screams of children would have filled the ears, the wails of women, and the weeping of men. Now all was silent. No words were shouted, no cries echoed in the night. The only audible screams were those of warping metal and the grinding of stone to sand, to ashes.

His eyes flicked side to side in a panic. Tears welled up, dropping to the rusting floor of muddied blood - or perhaps bloodied mud. He could not tell the difference. A shawl caught on his foot as he stood, his arms screaming all the while in pain, his legs almost giving way. He bent down and swept aside the shawl. A small head lay beneath. So small. Barely bigger than a hand. Even smaller now, with the shape of a steel-heeled boot engraved in the once smooth and rounded skull, dried blood scabbed around the dent. The body had been naked other than the shawl. A baby's body.

He retched. Flies swarmed at the head, buzzing eagerly, lapping at the iron of the baby's blood around the now deformed head. The contents of his stomach heaved up and splattered on a worn stone tile, the pattern of a rose just barely showing through the vomit and bile. "NO!" He flapped his arms in desperation around the corpse, shooing them away. He cried, the tears rolling down his face and wetting the dry wounds, the flies returning again for more. He raged.

Houses burnt beyond repair. Cobbles and tiles split. Bodies of the dead out for all to see. All laid bare. Still eyes outstretched, staring at the sky. He knew not why. What could there have been to see? Heaven? Or another hell?

He gagged again, bile dripping from his mouth, chunks of undigested meat and vegetables scattered everywhere. He moved on, stumbling amongst the ruins, the shawl still clenched in his hand.

The red liquid of life pooled on the ground, a woman face-down on the floor. He turned her over, pain ever-etched upon her visage. Another corpse lay beneath the woman, female again, not a wrinkle on her face. Not a rip-less shred of clothing on her, not an un-bruised section of thigh, or an uncut part of her exposed breasts. A daughter. Shielded by her mother, even in death. Not shielded enough. A maroon trickle between the mother's legs. A veritable puddle between the daughter's. Raped, both of them. No doubt, they had shrieked and cried out, the mother trying to protect her child, the pain of her failure much greater than the pain of her defiling.

An old man lay nearby, sprawled out in a cross, his knees shot in, a single hole in his temple through which daylight - if you could call it daylight - could be seen. It was like he had accepted his fate. An scruffy, long-haired spaniel rested next to him, unharmed but dead nonetheless, killed by a broken heart. Fat and scraggly, flea-bitten and matted, its droopy eyes had lost their light. It had not lost its loyalty. Not lost its faith.

He stumbled away again, this time tripping on the cracked cobbles, legs wobbling in disgust. His bottom lip trembled. He dropped into a crouch, squeezing himself into the remains of a house. A house abandoned, roof-less, wall-less. All that stood where the stairs. The stairs to Heaven? No. His eyes caught on a door, and he rushed to it, the door falling off its hinges as it swung open. A cupboard. A cupboard under the stairs. He backed away violently, slipping and ending up on his back, still propelling himself away with his legs, his eyes aglow with fear. A single thought slipped to the forefront of his mind.

Run.

So he did. He clambered up and soon a sound did fill the air. His feet beat against the ground in a ragged rhythm, leaping over the reminders of rotten, dead bodies. He ran, and ran, and ran. Buildings drifted past in his mind, pointing at the sky in accusation, as if blaming whatever lay there - maybe God. He fled, but at every turn there was more. More broken bodies, more battered buildings, more shattered shelters and more sweating silage. He blocked out the noise of his pattering strides, blocked out the sight of his greatest nightmare. But he couldn't block it out. Not really. It was too real. So he kept on running, set on doing so until he escaped this hell.

There was no escape. Burning pyres and churches lit the way, but no matter where or how he ran, it still stood there in front of him, around him, behind him. Everywhere.

He coughed and panted, his throat sore with effort and raw from the quality of the air. Even that was burnt. He tore off his jacket and threw it to the side. It landed in a head at the base of a wall, next to a couple still holding each other in their death. He walked slowly over, and drew the jacket over their bodies, leaving but the faces exposed to the human eye.

He collapsed, his feet sliding away from him, his back catching on the wall and stopping.

Where was everyone? What had happened? Sirius ... he choked, tears threatening to dampen his cheeks again. Ron, Hermione. Remus. Luna. Neville. Where were they? Where was he?

He remembered diving through the Veil, but nothing else since. He stopped - stopped and gazed. He gazed all around him, looking for signs of life in a long-dead place. A warped and battered iron sign was propped up against the ground. Ash covered and wrecked, but legible. His arms moved of their own accord and grabbed it, before pulling him into an armchair. An intact living room, save for the lack of walls. Or perhaps a café. The tables and chairs would suggest so. They were alone in the area, a red cross on a white flag the only other standing sight for miles around. It was almost normal. He slumped in the floral-patterned suede, and looked at the sign. It was heavy, with a hint of the heat around him.

It might have been legible, but he couldn't read it. Strange letters the size of his forearm - they meant nothing to him. He didn't even know what language it was. He was hardly the most studious of people, after all. Hermione would have known. Ron wouldn't have had a clue, and would have probably agreed with him at that point. "The fuck?"

Shaking his head wearily, he lowered the iron to the floor, and sank back, deep, into the armchair. He wept. He remembered Sirius falling, peaceful, through the Veil; he remembered Remus grabbing his ankle as he made his desperate dive.

If he was in this place because he jumped through the Veil, where were the two Marauders? He leapt to his feet and looked around him. Properly looked. Still, nil. "Well, nothing else for it."

Harry pulled his wand from his pocket and held it tightly in his sweat-dripping hand, wiping away at his cheeks and chin with his free left hand, a dirty trail of soot and ash left behind by the dirty appendage. What he planned would be risky. Who knew what could be lurking in the shadows? How did he know there weren't any Death Eaters around? He was still twitching slightly from the adrenaline of the fight in the Death Chamber and his sprint through the war-torn city and his legs held a small shake to them, not particularly obvious to the naked eye, but making normal walking rather a challenge. He raised his wand high in the air, pointing at the sky much like the lifeless eyes of the dead, only not in accusation but in desperation. He prayed to whoever was above for this to work.

Sparks. Red, they shot out of the tip of his wand in a straight line to the clouds, leaving a solid trail. It lit up the sky. Just as he had hoped. Harry breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Now anyone for miles around could see his location. "Lumos!"

His wand-tip lit up and shone, a beacon of sight for his tired eyes. He looked around and around, searching for someone. Anyone. "What am I doing?" he muttered to himself. "What the fuck am I doing _here_?"

"Where the hell even _is_ here?"

He wiped away at the grime on his glasses, failing to remove the muck from his weary face. He took a deep breath - nearly choking as he did - and sighed.

Harry made his way back into the myriad of madness, as if a labyrinth stretched out before him. He'd faced a maze before, which had sent his mind in circles. This, in comparison, was an ever spinning wheel. His wand, he kept pointing low, so as to see the ground - though there were times he wished he could not. Silent screams on the faces of the dead, a testament to their horrors. Horrors that Harry could only ever imagine, turning away from each and every body he saw. Soon his neck began to ache from over-use. He cared not. Seeing the looks in their eyes - it nearly broke him. Soundless prayers, pleading.

A good while later, his foot bumped against something. A hand, decaying and rotting, a small handgun lying loosely in what would have once been a firm grip. Now, the man's defiance was over. Defiance was all it could be called, for Harry stared into the very whites of his eyes and saw no bravery, only the strongest desperation, forged from fear. Harry bent at the knees, placing one carefully down next to a ragged piece of wire, barbed and rusted. He reached over the man's body, and with the gentlest of touches, pried it from the dead man's hand.

The grip was worn and used, smoothed by the long hold of death. His fingers shaking, he ran a single digit over the trigger, feeling the harsh cold of the metal beneath the thin, superficial layer of dirt. It rang deep in him, the contrast. By this time, he was sweating from the sweltering, cloying heat, even clad in his tee-shirt. It was probably empty, the revolver, but for some strange reason it made him feel safer, despite his wand. He knew how to use a wand, but not this mechanical contraption; sure, it was simple to just pull a trigger - all people knew how to do that - but that to Harry was no guarantee. He slipped it into his jeans. No, the cool, carefully crafted weight in his pocket carried with it a certain comfort … an uneasy comfort, but a comfort nonetheless.

Whatever this place was, and however quickly he wanted to leave it, it now felt just a little safer. The quiet was still more than a little disconcerting, but he could cope with that, for the time being. He just couldn't cope with being alone.

More minute whispers of wind swept the dirt around his feet. An explosion sounded in the far-off distance, muted by the miles of air between it and the city. The sound rang in his ears and smacked his head like a concussion.

Suddenly, a scrabbling noise cut through to him, and a figure rose upon a mound of rubble, silhouetted in the dim light of the flames. It slipped, crashing down to the ground, before pushing itself up and limping towards him, grunting and whimpering all the while. His wand was up in an instant, pointing directly at the shadow. "Don't come any closer! Stop right there!"

Harry's voice was cracking, a stutter creeping in. "I'm warning you! B-back away."

The figure's face entered the light - the face of a man, if you could even call him that; a beard grew patchily along his jawline. In parts that beard reached nearly to his chest, despite the bald spots. Singed, his hair looked black and dirty; whether it was black naturally or not, could not be told. His cheekbones were higher than any Harry had ever seen before … only they weren't high, they were bare. As that light flickered over him, Harry could see the wrinkled skin stretched taught over sinew and bone, the ring around his eyes as deep as the oceans. His arms were worse, and a shard of bone stuck through the surface in his right forearm, old burns discolouring even that. "Pomogi," his scratchy voice called, hoarse and torn, pleading. "Pomogi mne, pozhaluysta."

Harry was bewildered, an exclamation of surprise passing his dry lips. The man lunged forward, eyes blazing. "Pomogi!"

"Stupefy!"

A red light flew from the tip of his wand and struck the skeletal man soundly in the chest, dropping him unconscious to the floor. Harry breathed hard, his heart beating ten to the dozen.

"Harry?"

He whipped round, his wand aimed once again, panic flaring in his eyes. His hand trembled, his face twitched in a nervous tick. "HARRY!"

That voice was familiar. Smooth but with a hint of rasp, it felt like the best thing he had ever heard. "Sirius!"

There was his godfather, looking a little worse for wear, grubby and mucky, but unharmed, another taller figure behind him - Remus. The straggly old mutt sprinted to him, enveloping his shaking body in a crushing hug. A hug full of warmth, full of care, full of love. Sirius clutched him ever tighter to his chest, sobbing all the while. "It's okay, it's okay. It's okay, Harry."

"I've found him, Remus!" he cried out over his shoulder, before returning to his godson, his next words muffled in Harry's jet hair. "It's okay. Shhh … it's okay. Thank Merlin. Thank Merlin you're safe."

"Sirius, we need to get out of here. Bring Harry to the car."

There was an urgency in Remus' voice - a hint of fear. He barely glanced at the reunited pair. Instead, his eyes twitched around agitatedly, watching everything, as if looking for a sign.

Sirius nodded jerkily. "Okay, come on Harry. We need to go." Harry wiped his face on his sleeve and let himself be guided along the dusty street to a running, sputtering car, box-like and beige in colour. "Get in the back, kiddo. Remus is right. This place really isn't safe."

Harry gave a muted chuckle. "I kinda guessed that by now. Where is this place, anyway?"

Remus turned round and pocketed his wand. "We'll explain when we're on the road. When we're out of here."

Harry looked at Sirius, who gave him a grim nod, and climbed into the back.

* * *

 **Okay, there you go. I know, a pretty short first chapter, but it's really nothing more than a taster for what is yet to come. If you want to continue reading this atrocity called fanfiction, then please do. That'd be great. Any feedback would also be appreciated, from flames to religious praise, criticism to marriage proposals.**

 **Over time, it is likely that I will edit chapters, but for now, while I do have a very good beta reader, I am looking to you lot to pick up any extra errors that she couldn't find. Thanks, and toodles all.**


	2. Sympathy for the Devil

**Author's Notes  
Lord** **:** Alright then folks, here's another chapter for you. My son (Quidditch) is currently working hard for his up-coming exams, so don't expect an update on his story for probably another two/two-and-a-half months. In other news, I have renamed this from its tentative title of 'Dogged Determination' to (eventually, via a very short stint with the most clichéd name I could think of) 'Paint it Black'. For people who get that reference, congratulations. You have good taste in music.

Anyway, onwards folks!

* * *

 **Unknown Date**  
 **Unknown Time**  
 **Unknown Location - Road**

The car spluttered along, passing flash-charred telegraph poles by the broken roadside. The fields formed a barrier, scorched and naked as the bodies in the city, which blazed and crackled in the distance, occasionally throwing up a little ball of reddish-orange light that would twist and turn and flicker in the air before dropping once more, like a stone lobbed high. Fireflies buzzed in the odd darkness of the city's shell; they battled with it, an ever-losing battle as their swarming forms wandered haphazardly - splitting and turning amongst the buildings with nothing but the strange light giving them their name to illuminate their wayward path. It was as if the insects created the very flames yet burning within the outskirts. Small branches and trees dotted the landscape, each one scarred, standing alone in the singed grass around their beige vehicle, little flecks of rust dropping onto the dusty tarmac of the road.

The interior of the car was as bad as the paint-job on the exterior. It was worn and patchy with fraying seats and carpet, and the stink of cheap cigarette ash deeply stained into the bobbly stripes of the thick fabric. Grey, ribbon-like marks littered the dreary plastic door linings and the dashboard, and Harry could almost see the man who had owned the old car snorting turgid plumes of smoke out of a flaring nostril. It was certainly owned by a man, no doubt aging, from the look of the few white hairs sticking into the solid carpets, and the well-fingered page corners of a dirty magazine in the back pocket of the driver's seat.

He fidgeted awkwardly in the back seat, his eyes still wide and searching the fields for signs of movement, still in shock and as a result, still with situational-hyperawareness. Every time he spotted a twitch in a bush, his head cracked instantly to look at it. On one occasion, he caught a flash of yellow - a hare, crawling in a threshing circle, its mouth wide open as if in a scream (silent, he suspected, due to the thickness of the car's windows) and its eyes standing out like a bug's - a mere ten feet away from the side of the road. His hands were shaking lightly in his lap, periodically spasming violently. So much so, he quickly whipped them under his body and sat on them, hoping to quell the shakes. The hairs on the back of his neck were torn between whether to stay relaxed and lying smoothly, or to stand up on end, contracted. He flinched every time the chassis creaked or groaned as it sank into the ruts and pot-holes in the road, shying away from the steadily dirtying windows with each added bump. For that matter, Sirius looked just as on-edge as his godson, with his eyes flickering from hay bale to fence-post, his fists clenching tightly around his wand before unclenching and clenching again, and his hollow face looking gaunter perhaps than Harry had ever seen. The rest of his body was still, with the barest of rises to his chest, as if in fact he wasn't breathing. Now and again, his nose would wrinkle slightly, and a nauseous expression would flit across his face, before he returned to normal. Remus, too, looked uneasy. His hands never strayed from their position on the tacky steering wheel except for the changing of gears, and his pupils stayed focused on the road - no movement from side to side, or up and done - completely staring.

It was Sirius that broke first. "Harry, I'm sorry."

The boy's head snapped around, confusion etched on his crinkled eyebrows.

Sirius sighed. "I'm sorry you had to see that. Back there. I've seen similar in the past, in the First War - Remus too," he said roughly, nodding at the man in question, whose head remained rigidly forward-facing. "Never expected you to see something like the stuff we had. Especially not on a scale like that. "

Harry's eyes stayed wide.

"I mean, we were in the Order the first time. Green. Fresh out of school. Two months after we joined up, we all got caught in a fight - an ambush - in Greater Manchester. It was confined to one or two streets, but the place was still trashed. Devastated. The lot of us threw up after the fight, it was that bad. This," he grimaced, gesturing out of the back window towards the gradually shrinking city. "This was worse. Bigger scale. Worse consequences."

For the first time in what must have felt like an hour, Remus turned around, albeit keeping one eye on the road for blocks and debris as he narrowly swerved around a dilapidated four-by-four. "I'd say this was muggle. No signs of magic, no snapped wands or peaceful faces. There were bullet wounds, Sirius. Wherever this is, it isn't magical. And it sure as hell isn't England, or anywhere near for that matter. Reality is, we're miles from home. Hundreds - in fact, no, thousands. Not sure where, exactly, but I think you've picked up the same signs as I have." Remus stated. "And just a few clues is better than no clue whatsoever.

Sirius made a low humming noise. "Grey high-risers. Apartment buildings. Pretty sparse landscape, mountains or at least hills off in the very far distance behind the city. They've probably got caves in there, too."

Remus turned back to the road, but he kept speaking this time. "Military issue camouflage uniforms and weapons. Three flags-"

"Four," Sirius corrected. "There were four."

Remus acknowledged the interjection with a wave of his hand. "Four, then. One of them was the old flag of the Union."

Harry frowned, so Sirius elaborated. "USSR. Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Golden hammer, sickle and star on a red background - it's a communist symbol."

"Another one was the new flag of Russia, the one that's white, blue, red. Post-soviet," Remus explained, pre-empting Harry's confusion. "And one more - that I saw - mostly green, but with three small horizontal stripes near the bottom; one red stripe was sandwiched between two white ones."

"I saw one with the word 'traitor' on it, probably in blood. It looked the same as the last one you mentioned, except the white and red were the other way round. I just can't think of what flag it was." Sirius mused. "I mean, Italy's red, white and green, but they're horizontal sections. How about that newly independent country, Belarus? That had at least red and green, didn't it, Moony?"

"It's not Belarus. The colours are the wrong way round. It's not Bulgaria either. Or Hungary, for that matter," Remus asserted.

"How d'you know?" Harry asked, finally breaking his silence and inserting himself into the conversation.

Remus shook his head lightly. "Went on a mission there for the Order at the end of last year, undercover with the packs. I know their flags. I saw them enough times while I was there. To be fair, the Bulgarians were probably still celebrating their independence - even if it was a couple of years old, it must've been a relief for them. It ended up going a bit sour - the mission, that is - so I got out of there as fast as I could north-west through Transylvania and ultimately Hungary to Austria."

"I was never much good at Geography in school," Harry said, a child-like tone in his voice. "Sorry."

Sirius reached over and patted him on the shoulder, missing the slight flinch as he looked at his godson fondly. "Don't worry, Harry. Remus is good enough at it for the three of us. I just happen to be brilliant at everything else," he joked, throwing a lopsided grin onto his face, which, though much healthier now following his incarceration, still held a deal of gauntness to it in certain lighting.

Remus harrumphed. "For now, we just need to get out of here, and hopefully find a road sign that hasn't been destroyed. That way we should be able to work out roughly where we are, and work out a way home."

At that, Harry jumped, his face paling drastically. "Wait, wait, wait. What about the Ministry? What about the Department of Mysteries?"

Panic twinged in his voice. "My friends ..."

"Harry! Snap out of it. They'll be finished by now. We'd already won, really, when I fell through," Sirius said sternly. "Question is, _how_ exactly did we end up here? Wherever _here_ is. If we work that out ... we can work out how to get home."

Without warning, Remus brought the car to a rolling stop.

"Remus? Moony?"

The werewolf swivelled round in the driver's seat, a dark look on his face. "I've got a theory, but you won't like it. Hell, I don't like it."

Sirius nodded, urging him on.

"Merlin, I sound mad, even in my own head ..."

"Out with it, Moony!"

Remus breathed deeply. "Okay. What if the Veil is something completely different to what we've been led to believe? No one who has ever been pushed into the Veil has left a body. The Ministry just use it to execute prisoners, except we don't know that they die. We just know that they no longer exist. At least, not to us. What if it's a portal?"

"Yes, it's an enigmatic structure in the Ministry, but what proof has there ever been that the prisoners actually die? Maybe it's a barrier between two lands, a physical manifestation, if you will. But so far, it's only one way - as far as we know. It's been there at the very least as long as - in my opinion, far longer than - the Ministry itself, for pity's sake. Why else would they build the Ministry around it? It's called the Veil for a reason, you see; there's a Hebrew tradition, where a veil of sorts divides the tabernacle from a temple's main body, as if the two are separate compartments or lands. They believed that it was the earthly meeting place of God with the children of Israel. That's where we get the term 'going beyond the veil'. It refers to meeting God, or a higher power, on an equal land."

His words came out rushed, all in one go, leaving him nearly panting for air, as if in a delirium. "I think ... I think we're in an alternate, parallel dimension. Another universe."

"Bullshit!" Sirius finally broke in.

"No, think about it!" Remus said. "What proof has there ever been of it being a portal between the land of the living and of the dead, as the Ministry thinks? Hell, the Dee Oh Em is still investigating it after all these years. Centuries, Sirius! And they're still working on it!"

Sirius' face was harsh now. "Really, Remus? A multiverse? You believe in that horseshit?" the animagus shook his head strongly. "The only person I've ever met who actually believe that was old Xeno, and he's barmy!"

"How else do you explain this then Sirius?" Remus shouted at him, pointing at Harry. "How else do you explain us getting here? Portkey? No hooking feeling. Apparition? Give me a break."

Sirius was silent. Slowly, the animagus shook his head. "I can't explain it. It's just ... I don't know. I can't believe it."

"I believe it."

The two adults looked Harry in the eyes once again, following his timid-sounding revelation. He was still shivering slightly, but it had calmed down significantly by now. And, despite the trembling, his eyes were no longer wide and staring. Yes, they still held a little fear, but there was no longer terror in them. "What other answer is there?"

Sirius winced, but nodded - albeit grimly - before he twisted back to face the road. Slowly, Remus kicked the car back to rattling life, and they continued driving, dust flying up in their clattering wake. "Bloody Communists," Sirius grumbled, grinning at Harry in the rear view mirror. "Can't even make a decent car."

He slapped the dashboard for emphasis. "Now, bikes, on the other hand, they made a good dozen of passable quality. Nothing on my old Triumph, mind you, but still pretty decent. I'll have to teach you how to ride one when we get out of here; we can't expect you to put up with a Lada Riva, by Merlin's floppy foreskin."

Harry's eyes widened once again, except this time, it was in a pleasant form of surprise rather than psychological shock. "So, any real idea as to exactly where we are here? I mean, we've narrowed it down to the Eastern bloc, but that doesn't really help much now does it?"

"I'd say it's pretty safe to say we're in Russia itself, considering the presence of their new flag. That, and neither of those green flags are country flags. I'd say it's a separatist region, and judging from that hole back there, it's pretty safe to assume they're at war with the government. Probably a centralised ideological war as well, if the white and red stripes were different ways round." Remus hypothesised in answer to Sirius' question. "That doesn't really leave much in the way of territories, as far as I know - unless, that is, in this world the whole thing's gone into rebellion."

"Doubt it," voiced Sirius. "There would have been other flags there as well if that had been the case. So, not Moscow."

Remus shook his head adamantly. "No. Nor Saint Petersburg. I would have recognised some of the buildings, even if they'd been destroyed."

"I'd say Stalingrad, but it's not really industrial enough for this to be Stalingrad."

"They renamed it," Remus said drearily. "Not that it matters anyway. It's definitely not. There was no statue of that bint, whatever her name was. Tallest in Europe, you know."

Sirius shot him a disbelieving look. "You really do know some trivial shit, don't you?"

Remus snorted. "You never know when it could come in handy."

Harry's lips twitched at the corners behind them, returning to scanning the horizon. "What about Sochi?" Sirius asked.

"Could be," Remus said. "But I wouldn't know until we can find an intact road sign that I can read. Otherwise, we're going off nothing but assumptions, and you know as well as I do from the First War that that never goes well."

Sirius grunted in response. "Frankly, Merlin only knows. It's not as if either of us have ever been to Russia before, is it? Surely there can't be too many big cities, though. It doesn't have a big population considering the size of the country."

"Actually, there are quite a few, just very spread out. Population wise, you're right. Although if I'm honest, that place didn't look anything like a resort. And isn't Sochi on the coast of the Black Sea?"

"Shit. I didn't see any water."

"Me neither."

"Guess that's ruled out, then," Sirius exhaled deeply. "What borders does Russia have, again, Moony?"

The werewolf rubbed his chin thoughtfully with his right hand, keeping the left on the steering wheel, before returning it to the plastic. "Poland, Ukraine, Finland, Belarus, the Baltic states, Asia and a couple of other ones, but they're only minor. I think it's pretty safe to assume we're either in the south or the west of the country, though."

"Why's that?" Harry asked, quizzical.

Remus pursed his lips. "Although Russia does have quite a few cities, most of them are in the west and the south of the country. The rest of it's barren wilderness and mountains."

"Which way are we driving, then?"

"Hopefully, west," Sirius semi-joked. "That way, we should either hit water or a border. Right, Remus?"

"Yes." Remus said plainly. "Whichever one of the two it is, it should work out. If we're lucky, we might run into the Balkans via the Ukraine. They're a suspicious bunch, but it we stay Muggle, then we should be able to pass through them into Western Europe. Of course, they're still in the old Soviet sphere of influence, but they're generally alright nonetheless. You just have to watch out for the danger signs if you make a mistake, because if you do, they'll know, and with their equivalents of the mafia, and the packs and vampires, there aren't really any easy escapes."

"Damn, I'd forgotten about the vampires."

"Vampires?" Harry gulped. "Are they, uh, anything like the stories?"

Remus scoffed. "Most of them, no. They're nothing to worry about. They tend to run local shops, and keep themselves to themselves, usually on the straight and narrow." he elaborated. "It's the criminals that are the dangerous ones - they like to take important hostages at ransom, and if they don't get the ransom, they feed. Used to be a big problem in Wallachia, but that all stopped a few centuries ago when the last ruling Drăculești were ousted from power after unification with Transylvania and Moldavia."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "He really does."

"What?" Sirius said. "Who?"

"He really does know some trivial shit, even if that part was kinda important."

Sirius gasped, his mouth agape; he laughed, the first real laugh he'd uttered since they had arrived. "See, Remus? Even Harry agrees!"

The werewolf groaned. "Oh, piss off."

* * *

An hour or two later, Harry was nothing more than a snoring lump in the back of the car, somehow sleeping through the bouncing of the road in his exhaustion. "Always," Sirius said, face downcast and voice a little groggy. "It's always him."

Remus grimaced. "Unluckiest kid I've ever met. He didn't inherit it from James, that's for sure."

Sirius hummed in agreement, himself too tired to speak now. He wiped at his eyes with a grubby sleeve and yawned. "How are we going to get back, Moony?"

"We've already gone over this Sir-"

He shook his head vigorously. "No, how are we going to get _home_? How, Moony?"

Realisation dawned, and Remus sighed. "I don't know, Padfoot. I really don't know. I'm hoping that, when we get back to England, we can find a way. We have to."

"We have to."

Silence reigned again, and the two adults struggled against their own bodies.

"Moony! Stop the car! There's a sign."

"Huh?" Remus jolted, fully awake now. "Sign? Where?"

Sirius pointed, and Remus hit the brakes, pulling the car to a graunching halt. "Please tell me you can read Russian," Sirius begged, stepping out of the rusty passenger-side door. "'Cause I can't."

Remus was beside him, squinting at the dull blue and white. "Well, we're 14 kilometres from some place I can't pronounce, 23 kilometres from another, and about ... 158 from ... K-ras ... ras-n ... Krasnodar! I was right!" Remus leapt up in the air, jumping in a circle before enveloping Sirius in a crunching hug. "I was right, Sirius, I was right!"

"About what? You're not making any sense!"

As Remus continued to do a strange, crowing, celebratory lap of the Lada, Sirius shrugged. "Moony! Calm down!"

That sobered him up. "We're in the south of Russia, Sirius. Near the Ukrainian border straights."

Now, Sirius was smiling, and he himself leapt into the air, shocking Remus, before the two waddled another jubilant lap of the car.

"Umm ... guys?"

The two Marauders turned around, to see Harry sticking his head out of the back door of the car. "What's going on?"

Sirius grinned at him. "We're almost out, Harry. We're almost out."

* * *

 **Right, I haven't been able to contact my previous beta reader in a while, so I am now advertising for a new one. Anyone who's interested in becoming my direly-needed new beta reader, please PM me.**

 **Till next time.** **Toodle-pip!**


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